Tag Archives: Tim McGraw

Good Morning America’s live street party on CMA morning featuring Luke Bryan and GMA host and Country music fan Robin Roberts, who is also presenting at the CMA. (Click the photo to see a gallery of images from the GMA live street party) Photo: Shelley Mays/The Tennessean

There was some booty shaking, music making and a whole lot of photo taking this morning as country music star and three-time CMA Awards nominee Luke Bryan performed live for Good Morning America outside Bridgestone Arena.

Hundreds of fans packed the plaza well before sunrise for an opportunity to see Bryan and Good Morning America’s Robin Roberts on stage in Nashville in advance of tonight’s CMA Awards.

“There’s a lot of magic in this city,” Bryan told Roberts on air, saying people move here and “fall in love with the dream of being a big ol’ country singer."

Click here for a photo gallery from Tuesday's 61st annual BMI Country Awards show. Shown here are Hunter Hayes, center, and Troy Verges, right, who won Song of the Year honors for "Wanted" during the awards show in Nashville. (Photo: Steven S. Harman/The Tennessean)

Rodney Clawson, who co-wrote several of the past year’s radio hits, is performing rights organization BMI’s 2013 songwriter of the year.

Clawson, who gave up farming in Texas to come to Nashville at the urging of friend John Rich, moved to Nashville 10 years ago. Since then, he has written 11 No. 1 country songs.

“It’s been cool to see what’s happened with his career,” Aldean said. “He’s written some big songs for us, like ‘Amarillo Sky’ and ‘Johnny Cash.’ I think it makes a song great when someone who is writing it has lived the songs. Rodney writes songs that are believable because he has lived them.”

Hunter Hayes’ “Wanted,” a chart-topping, Grammy-nominated song co-written by Hayes and Troy Verges, won the Song of the Year award.

Because of that success, they’re now receiving yet another accolade: CMT has named each of the men a CMT Artist of the Year.

The five acts will be honored at 90-minute live special on CMT set to air 7 p.m. Dec. 3 from Nashville. The evening will recognize the artists’ accomplishments over the last 12 months and include performances and surprise guests.

“I'm so honored to be in this group of artists,” Hayes told People magazine. “I looked at the list and thought, 'What the heck am I doing here?' I'm not making music with one eye on sales figures, but when you get something like this it's a great reality check that, 'Oh yeah, this is happening too,' and the hard work is paying off."

Hayes and Bryan are both headlining multiple sold-out shows in Nashville this weekend. Hayes will play Ryman Auditorium Friday and Saturday, the same days Bryan is set to bring his Dirt Road Diaries Tour to Bridgestone Arena. Florida Georgia Line is set to open Bryan’s Friday-night show.

Click for more photos from the 46th Annual CMA Awards at Bridgestone Arena. (Photo:Larry McCormack / The Tennessean)

The 47th annual CMA Awards show is a month away and while country music fans already know who is nominated — Taylor Swift and Kacey Musgraves lead the pack with six nods each — the Country Music Association revealed the first batch of performers for the show on Monday.

After hearing stories of health scares with friends and family, Nashville songwriters Tim Nichols and Craig Wiseman wrote “Live Like You Were Dying,” in which the protagonist makes the most of his last days by going sky-diving and mountain climbing and finding forgiveness

Nichols and Wiseman talked about writing the song — a 2004 chart-topper for Tim McGraw — with Nashville Songwriters Association International executive director Bart Herbison.

Click the image for a gallery of Tim McGraw over the years (photo: Larry McCormack / The Tennessean)

A few weeks ago at his No. 1 party for “Highway Don’t Care,” Tim McGraw said he was about to start work on a new movie – he just couldn’t share the details.

And he’s still not talking.

But Billboard is reporting that the country singer has joined the cast of the up-coming Disney sci-fi film “Tomorrowland.” The movie, which will be McGraw’s ninth, stars George Clooney, and is scheduled to be in theaters around Christmas 2014.

The film, which will be directed by Brad Bird, also features Hugh Laurie, Britt Robertson, Raffey Cassidy and Thomas Robinson.

Disney’s plot synopsis reads: "Bound by a shared destiny, a bright, optimistic teen bursting with scientific curiosity and a former boy-genius inventor jaded by disillusionment embark on a danger-filled mission to unearth the secrets of an enigmatic place somewhere in time and space that exists in their collective memory as 'Tomorrowland.'"

McGraw’s role in “Tomorrowland” hasn’t been specified, but he starts filming in Vancouver next week.

His publicist Mary Hilliard Harrington confirmed the report.

The singer’s current single “Southern Girl” is at No. 12 on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart.

At the moment there are no women inside the Top 10 on Billboard’s country airplay chart and only three female vocalists rank inside the Top 25.

But radio’s penchant for male voices isn’t reflected in the nominations for the 47th annual CMA Awards.

The two leading nominees are female – Taylor Swift and newcomer Kacey Musgraves each picked up six nominations when they were announced this morning in New York City. In addition, Miranda Lambert has five nominations and Carrie Underwood, who will co-host the show with Brad Paisley, has three nominations.

Musgraves tweeted that the nominations are "six great reasons to get out of bed today."

Swift was equally excited.

"6 CMA NOMINATIONS!!!!!! ALBUM AND ENTERTAINER!!!," she tweeted following the nominations announcement. "What an excellent way to start the day. Thank you, guys. And thank you CMA. #CMAawards.

Swift was listed in categories including entertainer of the year, album of the year and female vocalist of the year with the last two pitting her against Musgraves. Musgraves, who released her debut album this year “Same Trailer Different Park,” is also named in the single of the year category and in pitted against herself in the song of the year category having written her hit “Merry Go Round” and Miranda Lambert’s “Mama’s Broken Heart”—both of which are mentioned under the heading.

Paisley says his most hated job was his college internship at Fitzgerald Hartley, an artist management company located on Wedgewood, and he explains he didn’t even get paid for his suffering. In fact, now he pays them.

“I’m not kidding, it was the worst internship of my entire time at Belmont,” says Paisley, who is now managed by the company. “It was horrible and I quit that one, and I said, ‘I’ll never be managed by them.’ So, never say never.’”

But if it’s a contest about whose job was the worst, McGraw wins – his past work experience is riddled with manual labor in the Louisiana heat, sometimes with snakes to keep him company.

“Picking tomatoes in Louisiana (was my worst job),” McGraw says. “I mean I had a lot of bad jobs, pulling coffee weeds in rice fields is not a good job either, especially with water moccasins everywhere. But, picking tomatoes was a pretty nasty job.”

These days both men have moved up in the world. Paisley recently charted his 22nd No. 1 song with “Beat This Summer” and McGraw celebrated his 34th chart topper with “Highway Don’t Care.” Paisley’s new single “I Can’t Change the World” and McGraw’s “Southern Girl” are now at country radio.

A country star, a governor and a Christian artist gather on a hill — no, it’s not the beginning of a bad joke.

That happened Saturday night as Christian artist Steven Curtis Chapman hosted a private fundraiser for the adoption assistance agency, Show Hope — and the fundraiser starred Tim McGraw as the headliner.

Chapman noted it was the 14th birthday for his first adopted daughter, Shaohannah, and joked that daddy got her a private Tim McGraw concert for her birthday.

About 350 people — including Gov. Bill Haslam and his wife, Crissy — gathered on the property of Nashville orthopedic surgeon Paul Thomas and his wife, Janice.

Dr. Thomas is a mutual friend of the country star and the Christian music star, and it was the doctor who delivered McGraw for the fundraiser.

“He probably had Tim under the knife getting ready to do surgery and said, ‘OK, if you want me to do this right, you’ll promise me to do this favor,’” Chapman joked with The Tennessean.

Chapman said he was “blown away” that McGraw played the fundraiser. And McGraw — in black hat, white dress shirt and grey slacks — was equally blown away by the crowd’s generosity.

“You’re great people to be here,” he said at the start of his set.

In 10 years, Show Hope has helped 4,000 couples pay initial adoption fees, which can be as much as $30,000 per child.